stormblood

[Faroth]

Why didn't JK Rowling write the 5th Harry Potter book so you could skip the previous 4?

(Yes, I'm being a little bit facetious)

[Wrecktangle]

@Ilir

I think you may have triggered a few people by your choice of words. In actuality what your'e saying isn't generally wrong (it's pretty universally accepted that the fetch questing content is both repetitive and boring), but the story aspect itself is both pleasant and decently well written so saying the story sucks is a bit of a misnomer (unless you actually believe that, but I'd be curious to hear how/why you arrived at that conclusion).

I fully agree that the jump potion should be an option for those that want it.

I'm not sold on new jobs being available outright. I actually like that there is a little story involved for them to be available. However I have been known to be an opponent of total accessibility.

[Ilir]

Yeah my choice of words was poor. I wasn't in a good mood that day so that's why !

I don't mind content being locked behind some quests but I do mind when an entire expac content is locked behind all the previous expac content. A lot of my friends were interested in FFXIV because of the 3 new jobs of heavensward but when they learned that they wouldn't be able to play those jobs before getting all the way to 50, then do all the story quests to then unlock the jobs but being thrown back to level 30 with the only way of levelling being doing outdated content (dungeon farm/fates) ... well they said "fuck it".

I don't see any benefit of forcing anyone to play a class/job they don't like for hours only to then unlock the job they want... at a level lower ... and then require them to do brainless exp farm.

Like... what ?

[FrostyButt]

Yeah my choice of words was poor. I wasn't in a good mood that day so that's why !

I don't mind content being locked behind some quests but I do mind when an entire expac content is locked behind all the previous expac content. A lot of my friends were interested in FFXIV because of the 3 new jobs of heavensward but when they learned that they wouldn't be able to play those jobs before getting all the way to 50, then do all the story quests to then unlock the jobs but being thrown back to level 30 with the only way of levelling being doing outdated content (dungeon farm/fates) ... well they said "fuck it".

I don't see any benefit of forcing anyone to play a class/job they don't like for hours only to then unlock the job they want... at a level lower ... and then require them to do brainless exp farm.

Like... what ?

This is what keeps me from coming back. Having to do all the main story quests from previous expansions just to unlock current expansion stuff. No thanks.

[Florena]

At least the sb jobs won't be locked behind story. But this isn't a model I think they can sustain in the long term expansion after expansion.

[Kazgrel]

if you want to do the outdated story content ... you still can. Just don't force everyone to do so.

- - - Updated - - -

imagine in the 5th expac.... the new guy will have to do hours of outdated content just to be able to finally play with his friends, like wth.

Don't even get me started on the new jobs being locked behind mandatory story quests.

I believe at one of the previous Fanfests, Yoshida stated that a player would only need to get a job to level 50 in order to obtain the quest to unlock RDM and (assuming) SAM, or whatever the other job will be. So the feedback regarding the "new jobs locked behind story" was heard.

I'm fine with the whole "do the story to unlock the xpac" stuff, but I agree with you pertaining to the new jobs. If someone's gotta slog through all that story, at least let them do it on a job they know they want to play. That being said about requiring the "do the story to unlock the xpac", while it makes sense from a lore perspective, gameplay wise, it's not sustainable long term. Could you imagine this game being on xpac #4 and requiring you to do all of ARR, HW, SB, and whatever xpac 3 is just to play the new stuff? Makes it a hell of a lot harder to recruit friends to play when they're basically stuck playing a single player JRPG for a couple hundred hours just to get to the point they can do stuff with their friends on a consistent basis.

[zito]

if you want to do the outdated story content ... you still can. Just don't force everyone to do so.

To a new player, it's not outdated story content as it's still relevant to the new story because you know... it's the base of FF14 story to begin with.

Like I said, for old players with alts sure, new players? No. If I skipped the story I probably wouldn't still be playing.

[mikeyh]

Uh, I wish they didn't force you to catch up. I resubbed to FF14 last year for a couple months and had a great time. Once I hit the max level I bought the expansion because I wanted to try out the Dark Knight. And THEN I realised I had to do 100+ story quests to even unlock to expansion content. No thanks.

[zito]

Uh, I wish they didn't force you to catch up. I resubbed to FF14 last year for a couple months and had a great time. Once I hit the max level I bought the expansion because I wanted to try out the Dark Knight. And THEN I realised I had to do 100+ story quests to even unlock to expansion content. No thanks.

did you have fun with ARR? Then do those 100 quests because you'll find them fun too, why would you buy a game to skip it's content. It honestly doesn't take that long and it unlocks a bunch of dungeons and trials you haven't done yet

[Melsiren]

I don't even want to imagine how lost I'd be if I just defeated the Ultimate Weapon and just skipped right to entering Ishgarde. Then again, I never understood people who never played the full ME series and picked up at 2 or 3.... or any game for that matter.


In Warcraft, specifically Legion it really opened my eyes to just how horrible a level boost could be to understanding the faintest clue about what's going on with the games story. My boost was of course prompted for the Broken shore, then I was prompted for the Twilight Highlands intro quest line, then WOD, then MOP's opening, and then opening of Cataclysm with Thrall telling me to save the world.

I mean if I was a new player who had no idea what the story for the game was, I would have some Troll tell me to save the world only to die and have some grey elf become my leader, then have some brown orc send me out for conquest, only to return and have some wizard tell me some other brown orcs are invading my planet (that is currently under legion invasion as far as I'm concerned because I'm a new scrub let who knows nothing about the game in this situation). Only to go back and the angry brown orc from before who told me to go to Twilight Highlands now telling me to paint a continent red. Oh, and then Thrall invaded my thoughts and called me a hero, something about Azeroth is in trouble.

Like, I understand that some people give zero fucks about story, and Warcraft historically has had shoddy story telling, however that's the one thing I heavily appreciate in FF14, the fact that almost everyone I come across can actually talk about the story and understand what's going on, and why we are doing what we are doing. In Warcraf it was a regular occurrence to meet people who knew next to nothing about the games story.

I guess I personally find beauty in it, Square/theFF14team care about the story and the way it's told, even when the Jump Potions were being discussed they talked about giving the player a summery of some sort when they boost so they know what's going on. This team respects their story, I think at one point Yoshi himself even said they won't add things into the game until it makes sense for the story. Now FF14's story is far from perfect mind you, but it's refreshing when you come from a game that bastardized the story at every turn.

WITH all that said, I agree the fetch quest are bullshit after ARR, but the non-filler quest, the ones that focus more on the development of the Citystates and the conflict that leads up to HW was fine. Doing the HW expanded story only took about a day and a half for me, while the story for ARR took about 4 or so days.

[Katchii]

I know I am. But I find it really really annoying to be obligated to do outdated content in order to gain access to the expac.
@Katchii yeah I see your point. I guess the story isn't that bad in itself (especially heavensward) but having to do all of them just to be able to access the new expac content feels so wrong to me.

Especially because of all those "go talk to X, go talk to y, go talk to x again, go talk to Y again, go pick up those stuff, then go talk to x" quests

I will agree on this. I personally played from day 1, so having to go through all the quests wasn't an issue. For people just now starting, having to do that many quests to get to the other content....yeesh. I do feel bad for them and wish there was a way to fast track it somewhat.

[Binaris]

This is, at its heart, final fantasy. The story is not a punishment, it is the point. If you want mindless killing with no caring about the story, im certainly not going to talk you into playing this game. There are plenty of mmos out there with a shit story that doesnt matter, this game just isnt for those people.

[dope_danny]

This is, at its heart, final fantasy. The story is not a punishment, it is the point. If you want mindless killing with no caring about the story, im certainly not going to talk you into playing this game. There are plenty of mmos out there with a shit story that doesnt matter, this game just isnt for those people.

I think its a unique case that some folks don't gel with. The name on the box is "Final Fantasy 14 Online" It is the 14th mainline title in the same series including Final Fantasy 7 and Final Fantasy 15. Its not a spin off like Cyrstal Chronicles or a tie in. Its a mainline Final Fantasy that happens to also be an mmorpg. Sadly modern games have trained people that mmorpgs are a mad rush to an endgame skinnerbox treadmill where you pay a sub fee for a 'raid or die' idea where you ignore the world to spend months chipping away at the same instance and things like cutscenes and quest text exist only to be skipped. Its the bunny hopping "gogogogogogogogogogogogo" culture that kind of misses the point of mmorpgs really.

[Melsiren]

I think its a unique case that some folks don't gel with. The name on the box is "Final Fantasy 14 Online" It is the 14th mainline title in the same series including Final Fantasy 7 and Final Fantasy 15. Its not a spin off like Cyrstal Chronicles or a tie in. Its a mainline Final Fantasy that happens to also be an mmorpg. Sadly modern games have trained people that mmorpgs are a mad rush to an endgame skinnerbox treadmill where you pay a sub fee for a 'raid or die' idea where you ignore the world to spend months chipping away at the same instance and things like cutscenes and quest text exist only to be skipped. Its the bunny hopping "gogogogogogogogogogogogo" culture that kind of misses the point of mmorpgs really.

Yep, and these people are absolutely gaming cancer. It's sad we live in an age where a Massively Multiplayer online ROLE PLAYING game is seen as strange because it gives a fuck about story, and even encouraged immersion and...... Role Play .

[Ilir]

Who said it was strange to have a game with a story ? no one.

But pretending you don't see the issue and call other "cancer"

[Melsiren]

Who said it was strange to have a game with a story ? no one.

But pretending you don't see the issue and call other "cancer"

Because there is no issue with having a game that focuses mainly on the story, if you do not care about story then FF14 is not a game for you.


I never said anyone said it is strange, but people are acting like it is strange that game (and the team who designed said game) care about the story.

Strange:

adjective
1.
unusual or surprising in a way that is unsettling or hard to understand.


The fact is if people did not find it strange they would not be spending the time of day complaining that the game actually expects you to advance though the story, rather then letting you skip it so you can treat it like every other MMO on the market these days and do your brain numbing gear grind. So yes, excuse me when I consider games that set this as an expectation and players who want every game to just conform to this cancer.

So let me repeat that again: It's sad we live in an age where a Massively Multiplayer online ROLE PLAYING game is seen as strange for caring about it's own story.

[zito]

Who said it was strange to have a game with a story ? no one.

But pretending you don't see the issue and call other "cancer"

you buy a story driven game in it's story driven series to skip its story

[dope_danny]

Who said it was strange to have a game with a story ? no one.

But pretending you don't see the issue and call other "cancer"

If the issue with an rpg is "i dont want to play through the rpg" then the issue is with the individual not the game. Homogenisation in the name of 'wider market appeal' has watered down and neutered so many mmos and killed them off because devs listened to people whos only complaints were summed up to 'i dont actually like your game but want it to change to suit me and core audience be damned' and its become so common in gaming that its becoming a more common reaction that people react negatively to it because people have seen where it leads.
It still sucks if its a friend playing catch up of course but if you are the singular player who hates the quests, hates the story and wants to skip it all you gotta ask yourself what are you skipping to get to and why is it worth it to begin with?

[StrawberryZebra]

I never said anyone said it is strange, but people are acting like it is strange that game (and the team who designed said game) care about the story.

Most games have just enough story to give context to the players actions and to keep the action going. If those game Devs have a story they're simply burning to tell then they really should be considering a career as a novelist, not a game developer. I'm not saying that as an insult to them, more a statement of fact. Video games have almost always handled complex story poorly due to the story conflicting with the games mechanics.

Thats where FF 14s story fails. The very idea that people could actually die in a world where there's more Phoenix Down's than you know what to do with is simply ludicrous. There are NPC's who complain about extreme poverty who will give every single player thousands of Gil! You kill a litteral GOD at level 20, yet are told by NPC's that a band of common thugs is going to be a challenge. The mechanics and the story just do not line up at all and the result is a hot mess that people just want to skip.

It still sucks if its a friend playing catch up of course but if you are the singular player who hates the quests, hates the story and wants to skip it all you gotta ask yourself what are you skipping to get to and why is it worth it to begin with?

Quite possiably for the one unique thing MMORPG's still have left - Group RPG content. FF 14 is a game that is packed with interesting and varied dungeons and some of the best raiding I've seen in a very long time. Keeping one of the main attractions of your genre locked away behind a bunch of hurdles just ends up with a section of your playerbase who resent you for it.

I dare say that a game that kept Group and Raiding content, but ditched most of the other MMO conventions such as questing, would be something that would appeal to significant slice of the audience of a traditional MMORPG. It keeps the things that those players are interested in, while removing the things they don't enjoy. Plus removing all the big time sinks makes it far more interesting to people who want a raiding experience, but don't have the time to invest in a traditional MMORPG.

[dope_danny]

I dare say that a game that kept Group and Raiding content, but ditched most of the other MMO conventions such as questing, would be something that would appeal to significant slice of the audience of a traditional MMORPG. It keeps the things that those players are interested in, while removing the things they don't enjoy. Plus removing all the big time sinks makes it far more interesting to people who want a raiding experience, but don't have the time to invest in a traditional MMORPG.

Its a genre thats existed for over ten years actually